


spread me like an angel 'cause i walk upon this earth

by kwritten



Series: Finding a Balance [9]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 11:11:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7047106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after moving to Oxford to study, single and alone-Willow stumbles into a pub wedged between two nondescript shops and strikes up a conversation with the bartender. Seemingly innocuous, this conversation (and several shots of something that might be straight lava) leads Willow's mind on a haphazard musing over her time in England - breaking up with Oz, living alone, losing herself in her work - and in the morning, everything might be different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	spread me like an angel 'cause i walk upon this earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snogged](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snogged/gifts).



> for my darling snogged as a very (very) belated bday present :) ilu babe
> 
> I've been considering exploring Willow's part of the world in the Balance Universe and this felt like the perfect time!

Maybe you could be limitless with your feet on the ground and someone else’s hand in your own.

 

 

*

 

Willow glared down at the sticky bar in the dank pub and gripped her pint of warm beer tighter and tried very, very hard _not_ to sing along with the very drunk girl in the booth behind her right shoulder.

_Okay, so you’re Brad Pitt? That don’t im-press me much._

It would have been easier to take had the drunk girl been terrible, off-tune and slurring, but she wasn’t. Made the song almost _listen_ able, even through the din created by the group of men watching some kind of sports event in the corner.

This place had seemed a lot more like a hole-in-the-wall that should have been filled with old-timey regulars silently staring down at their whiskey from the outside.

She wasn’t even entirely sure _how_ she had found this place, she’d been wandering the streets of London, pissed off and practically _sparking_ with frustration when it began to rain and she ducked into a decrepit old pub squished between an Indian grocery and a discount shoe store.

_So you got the looks, but have you … got the touch?_

Willow smiled at the frothy drink in her hand and whispered, “So you’re a werewolf? That don’t im-press me much.”

The bartender rolled her eyes, “They always think they’re the only ones with problems, don’t they?”

_Now don’t get me wroooong…_

Willow blinked at her, “Who?”

_I think you’re al-right…_

“Men,” she waved the rag in her hand dismissively, “Werewolves.” The bartender’s hair seemed to grow a few inches and darken from a pale pink to something closer to brown, but it must have just been the lighting. She plopped two glasses on the counter and poured an amber-looking liquid into both, sliding one across to Willow, raising the other to her lips she said, “Here’s to man-wolf pain.”

_But that won’t keep me warm on the long, cold, lonely night._

 

 

_Dear Buffy,_

_Glad you aren’t dead. Again? How many times is that for you?_

_~~Oz left again. I don’t think he’s coming back this time.~~ _

_This winter isn’t the best time for a visit, I’m super swamped with grad school and Oz ~~left~~ is doing so much with his band these days. Come in the spring, when the weather is better!_

_~~I don’t want you to see the mess I made of my life, I don’t want you to come here and see me alone in my shitty flat with no friends and dark circles under my eyes.~~ _

_Give my love to Dawnie!_

_~~Please stay away.~~ _

_Love, Will_

 

 

Willow clinked glasses with the girl before she could think twice about _what the fuck?_ she had said. It felt like she swallowed straight liquid lava.

The bartender giggled, freckles popping up on the bridge of her nose, “Firewhiskey – there’s nothing like it, is there?”

_So you got a car? That don’t im-press me much._

Willow cocked her head to one side, “I think she’s singing that song out of order.”

“Tonks,” the bartender stuck out her hand, a tattoo of what looked like a badger taking up much of her forearm.

Willow took it instinctively, “Willow.”

“American?”

Willow nodded and gulped because Tonks-the-bartender-with-the-badger-tattoo was refilling their shot glasses with that amber liquid and despite being the girlfriend to a super-cool-band-member for the past… however-many-the-fuck years, she never developed a stomach for alcohol, always too light on her feet, always too-reliant on her mind to get her through the world.

_But you’ve got being right down to an art._

She’s never trusted her body much.

Fell in love with a boy when she was just a child and followed him across an ocean and called it progress or adventure or adulthood and all it really turned out to be was a fairy tale that she didn’t belong to.

(They never tell you about the other girls that wandered into the woods. Red made it back home, what does she care about the girls that never met the wolf and are still wandering?)

They took their shots and Tonks really had purple hair, apparently, or maybe there was a weird color-changing light somewhere in the pub. (That must be it.)

“Explains the boggart,” Tonks winked. “Always reacts so oddly to Yanks.”

_I can’t believe you kiss your car goodnight…_

Willow took another shot without really thinking it through. It was on the bar, she probably couldn’t afford it, something that felt like fire and tasted like cherries and smoke and made her whole body feel like ash floating away on the wind probably wasn’t cheap.

The tingling in her lips and her toes told her that she was drunk and so she smiled when the bartender’s eyes melted from a dark brown into bright purple with pupil’s more like a cat’s than a human’s. She pressed her fingers to her lips and laughed, “Are your lips tingling?”

Tonks winked, “Want to feel?”

_Yeah I think you’re alright._

 

 

_”You cheated.”_

_Oz looked up at her silently, his eyes sorrowful and full of regret. Why did he always have to look so … **so**?_

_She played with the fraying edges of the fuzzy orange sweater she now only mostly wore in the safety of their flat, too old and worn to be seen out in public. ~~Like her.~~ Except today. _

_Today._

_Strength was important in times like this, her spine straightened just as it always did and her hands flicked the issue away, “Well, the wolf cheated. Doesn’t count.”_

_He whispered something she couldn’t quite hear and forever after she was secretly glad she never actually formed that memory. Maybe his confession was the one thing she couldn’t handle._

_Demons? Vampires? Hell?  
No problem. _

_A cheating boyfriend?_

_~~A broken heart?~~ _

_Some things you just don’t want to be made for. And she didn’t want to be made for hurt._

_A cheesy vampire stumbled around the corner, groaning like a zombie – fuck British vamps were so uninspired, they were a waste of a good pun._

_Using your mind to propel a chair leg down an alley and into the heart of a vamp kind of puts things in perspective._

_(You cheated. You. You with your lips and your hands and your legs. You cheated once, he forgave you. You cheated you you you.)_

_“Don’t come back.”_

_(You did this. You bitch. You evil cunt. You slut. You cheated. You drove him away. He hates you. He hates your body and your arms and hands and lips that cheated cheated cheated. You.)_

_He stared back at her._

_(He hates you.)_

_She rarely used her magic around him. She hid things from him, too. He hid a wolf-girl and she hid her strength from him. They both pretended to be weak for the sake of the other._

_(You you you you cheated you.)_

_They both pretended that their strengths were actually their weaknesses. Him with his wolf and his passion and his anger and his teeth that could claim and maim. Her with … with what._

_(You you you you youyouyouyouyouyou.)_

_“What do you mean?”_

_She lifted her hand and smiled to herself._

_(He forgave you you you you you you. Forgive him him him him him.)_

_So much power in her thin hands. She could make a tree grow right under his feet, carry him on its branches up and up and up until the air grew thin around him and he suffocated. She could lift him up more quickly than he could climb back down._

_That had always been their problem, hadn’t it?_

_Neither one willing to let the other walk with the ground pressing into their feet._

_(It’s your turn your turn yours yours yours you you you.)_

_“I’ll give you twenty-four hours. This time, don’t come back.”_

_She didn’t say: I won’t be your safe harbor anymore._  
_She didn’t say: I’m worth more than your wounded pride.  
_ _She didn’t say: I’m not holding on to something broken anymore._

_She floated away._

_Because it felt like the right thing to do at the time._  
_(Hey, at least she didn’t float off in a pink bubble.  
_ _She had limits.)_

 

 

Leaning over a sticky bar to kiss a bartender on the lips under the very cheesy cover of testing each other’s drunk-numb-lips was about as sloppy and unromantic and unsexy and ridiculous as it sounds.

And it was the most amazing kiss of Willow’s short life.

“Where have you been all my life, Red?”

Tonks wrinkled her freckled nose and dark eyes peered at Willow from under a dark black fringe.

“Waiting,” she shrugged.

(The second kiss was much better.)

____Will –__  
_Tara and Dawnie are literally dancing around the house as I type this. The second I got your message I called Anya and she swung something with the Council and I think they may be getting us a private plane and a flat to stay in while we are there. BUT WE ARE ALL COMING! (Even Sunggyu and Spike can you believe what they will do if Dawnie pouts?) SO YOU CAN’T CHANGE YOUR MIND!!! *insert evil cackle here* Congrats on the promotion and the new flat and everything! I’m gonna hug you so hard!!!  
_Buffster__

___That don’t impress me much.__ _

Willow frowned down at the pile of clothes on the foot of the bed and tugged a lime green camisole loose. She really ought to do the wash. She sniffed the shirt cautiously and then shrugged, pulling it over her head without a second thought.

“You can’t wear that,” Tonks’ voice came from somewhere behind her, but Willow continued adjusting the spaghetti straps regardless.

Under her hands, the shirt transformed from a lime green into a soft yellow.

___That don’t impreeeeeeeeessssss me much!__ _

“Slytherin colors to a school reunion, it’s like you want me to break up with you,” Tonks hissed, slapping Willow’s butt on her way out the door. “Don’t be late, either. And if you wear red I’ll personally send you back to that hellhole you made me help you close last week.”

“As if this isn’t worse!” Willow shouted back, trying to inflect malice rather than humor into her voice.

Tonks’ school chums were okay.

A little melodramatic and a bit morose if anyone brought up the war, but otherwise a bit like home, loud and full of laughter and inside jokes and with an inordinate amount of love for firewhiskey.

Out of Willow’s line of sight, Tonks crashed and banged her way through the flat, “If you don’t send that boggart packing I’ll … You know it’s not a personal … buy a jukebox… fucking Shania Twain I mean… MERLIN’S BEARD THIS CAT!… Iloveyouseeyoutonight!”

___So you’re Brad Pitt? That don’t --__ _

Willow examined herself in the mirror, a black and grey pinstripe dress suit with a pale yellow camisole, modest heels with a square toe, bright hair pulled back – she almost looked professional. She lifted the black robe off the foot of the bed, draped it over her shoulders, and stepped into the fireplace.

A whiteboard on the fridge said in haphazard, block lettering:

 

_ ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!!!!  
HUFFLEPUFF REUNION!!!!!!  
WILL’S MINISTRY INTERVIEW!!!!!!!! _

In the window, a small grey kitten yawned, the bell on its collar jingling into the silence.

 

 

 

 

A PhD isn’t the sort of thing that keeps you warm at night. It gets framed behind some glass and hung on a wall and then… well, then people can call you “Doctor” with a straight face and maybe that means something in the end.

The Council seemed to think that Willow getting a PhD from Oxford was a waste of her time, but she didn’t really feel like someday trying to explain what exactly “Slayer Lore” was at a cocktail party. (In the future of her imagination, there were a lot of cocktail parties with people that inexplicably didn’t know what her job was.)

So okay, _two_ PhDs weren’t going to keep her any warmer at night, but two simultaneous graduate programs definitely could keep her so busy she didn’t notice the empty bed.

The thing was – she noticed it more when there was someone else there. A girl with Faith’s wild hair or Anya’s sly smirk or a boy with Xander’s self-deprecating charm or Giles’ clear eyes; drug home while drunk or high or too exhausted to do anything but crave the feeling of _yes yes yes_. In those moments, her bed seemed impossibly small and breathing seemed impossibly difficult.

Books and coffee (too much coffee) and tea with milk and honey and books and her sturdy laptop and the lab and the library.

With all these things to fill her time and her mind and her heart, what need did she have to pay attention to an empty bed?

 

 

 

“It sounds lonely, Will.”

In the background, a child screamed – either with laughter or anger she couldn’t determine – and a chorus of laughter burst in and out like a laugh track on a sitcom.

“It’s not,” she said stubbornly, picking at a scab on her chin and staring into her empty fridge.

Xander shouted something to someone that wasn’t her and Willow tuned out the frantic noise.

“WILL. Are you listening to me?”

Willow settled down on the floor next to the door and began sorting through the pile of take-out menus that had collected there over the past year. “No,” she answered honestly.

Xander sighed, “I’m worried about you, Will.”

“I’m worried about your wife, Xan. She’s knocked up again? How many is that? Twelve?”

There was a loud sound like a car smashing into a brick wall that covered up the sound of Xander lecturing her and then the call dropped. Willow’s spine was already tense, ready for a fight – for the inevitable, _I don’t even WANT to date_ , that was perfectly, honestly true and always, always felt fake even to her own ears.

She let that tension seep into meal decision planning and after a half-hour battle between her brain, stomach, and colon – she threw out the ad for the Indian place that had given her food poisoning the previous week and opted for pizza. Pizza was safe.

She drank a glass of red wine with her pizza and watched old episodes of _The West Wing_ and told herself it was perfectly normal to _not_ feel lonely when alone.

The next day she picked up a kitten from a shelter and told herself that she wasn’t proving something to other people, she just really liked cats.

 

 

“You’re still here,” Willow stared blankly at Tonks, who was whistling merrily at the stovetop and (hopefully) making something at least partially _edible_. Lord knew the girl could mix a drink, but it was a true treasure that could also prepare a proper egg the next morning.

“Of course I am, silly,” Tonks turned, short purple spiky hair framing her broad face and nearly black eyes shot with nerves. “Unless… you wanted me to leave?”

Willow considered for a moment, thinking back to the moment before she opened her eyes, to that stumbling trip to the toilet to pee in the middle of the night and collapsing back into bed beside a warm body, to the night before that seemed… _sparkly_ even in the harsh light of a properly hung-over morning.

“I guess not…”

Tonks smiled widely, “Coffee or tea?”

“Coffee,” Willow groaned, stepping over the cat rolling at her feet for attention and heading straight to the coffee-maker plugged into the wall and perched precariously on top of a stack of books.

“A proper witch,” Tonks laughed.

Willow paused a half-step away from the coffee, the much-needed much-beloved coffee, “Wait. What?”

 

 

 

“Nathanial Patrick Harris you PUT YOUR SISTER DOWN, so wait say that again?”

“Her girlfriend is moving in, Harris. Keep up with the convo.”

“Dawnie, shut up. Just because we’re on speaker phone doesn’t mean you can interrupt.”

“Geez, Xander – that name is quite a mouthful, are you trying to give your kid a complex?”

“So when… NO NO LAVINIA DON’T EAT THAT SWEETIE.”

“This Monday, Monday right?”

“Monday is a weird day to move.”

“No one asked you, Dawn.”

“Faith and Giles are going to come help,” Willow smiled, looking around at her boxes. “Something about wanting to check out the Floo network and …”

“Faith said something threatening, didn’t she?”

“Can hardly believe I used to hate her,” Willow scooped up Cat and buried her face in his fur at the back of his neck before he could properly complain. 

A rattle of noise and questions came spilling through the tinny speaker on her new cell phone – specially adapted by her to counter the effects of living with a Hogwarts witch – and something bloomed inside Willow’s chest. 

Contentment, maybe. 

“SAMANTHA SWEETIE DON’T STICK THAT IN YOUR BROTHER’S EYE! Sorry guys, I gotta go. Congrats Will. Come visit sometime, right?”

After about a half hour of Dawn’s relentless questions – half of which she attributed to a silent boy named Sunggyu much to his own protestations that he didn’t care at _all_ what color scheme they had decided on for their bathroom – and Olivia’s gentle warnings about domesticity, the conversation seemed to wind down and most of the Scoobies back in Sunnydale had wandered off leaving Willow and Buffy alone. 

“I’ve been worried about you, Will.”

“At least I didn’t die.”

Buffy chuckled and sighed.

“I still haven’t forgiven you for that, you know.”

“I was okay, you know. Being alone can be…”

“Nice.”

Willow smiled at the memory of her friend, so bright so blonde so much _muchness_ in her every moment.

“Yeah… it can be really, really nice.”

Tara’s soft voice called Buffy away and Willow set her phone down on the bedside table, climbing into her empty bed for one last time before her world changed, and spread out her toes and fingers as far as they could go. 

Tonks found her that way in the morning and collapsed on top of her, throwing a bag of doughnuts at her head first and wiggling her small frame into a smaller shape so that they both fit, angels flying away on a mattress.

**Author's Note:**

> a note on boggarts:  
> look. it is an absurd thing to suggest that for AMERICANS, boggarts sing the person's least favorite music only better. but. why else would you let a boggart live in a pub uncontested? imagine that this particular boggart is deeply attached to music and picks out your least favorite thing to sing. imagine that Tonks - bartender extraordinaire and actual badass - picked it up during her Aurorer work and brought it into the pub for laughs.


End file.
